


Family, Interrupted

by whopackedthese



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Brothers, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, The Final Problem, s4, series 4 scene fill, the holmes family - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 13:12:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9492950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whopackedthese/pseuds/whopackedthese
Summary: I was bothered that we did not get a connector between John and Sherlock talking with Lestrade, and Sherlock and Mycroft telling their parents about Eurus still being alive. So I wrote my own...'Because for all your intelligence, you're stupid.'





	

'Will you see her again?' John's question was valid, Sherlock knew, but answering him would open up a channel of communication he wasn't sure he was willing to allow right now. Instead of a verbal response, Sherlock offered a shrug and an expression that was hard to completely identify - his eyebrows were raised as if in questioning, but his eyes were sad as if in longing, and his lips remained tightly pinched. 

'Of course he will,' Mycroft said quietly, and both men looked up from their chairs in the far corner of the small hospital room to the man who had been lying in perfect silence and stillness for the last hour. 'She's his sister.' 

John worried his bottom lip with his teeth and then released it. 'And your parents?' He asked bravely, 'How're you going to tell them she's still alive?' 

'With those exact words, I shouldn't wonder,' Mycroft offered without looking at John, too focused on fixing his little brother with a firm stare that conveyed both guilt at his limited injuries and at his own silences and lies having got them to this point. 

John shook his head and rubbed both of his palms across his tired face. He still felt cold and damp, despite the hospital scrubs that had been given to him by the staff when they'd arrived at the Queen Elizabeth a short while after Mycroft. He'd drank cup after cup of machine tea and still felt chilled to the bone, and despite the sounds around him his ears could still hear the rushing of the water from within the well. 'She's a psychopath...,' he said, dragging his hands down to lace his fingers together in his lap. 'Are you alright?' he turned to his right in the chair, and inclined his head at a tilt to catch Sherlock's eye. 

Sherlock nodded his head and blinked his eyes quickly to moisten them as he and Mycroft finally broke their contest. 'I'm fine,' he finally spoke, and his voice was hoarse and forced. 'Excuse me,' he said, getting to his feet. 

'Sherlock?' John frowned, looking first to Mycroft then following Sherlock with his eyes as the lithe man headed toward the door. 'Are you sure that you're alright?' He was met with Sherlock's silence; he wasn't entirely certain if he had been expecting him to answer him, anyway. 

'Let him go,' Mycroft said unnecessarily. 'He'll process it and return in his own time.'

John tutted and breathed in deeply, feeling his chest expand painfully before he exhaled. 'It's going to take years for him to process this, Mycroft, and it could all have been avoided if you had just - I don't know, been honest.' He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, and found himself smiling though none of this was remotely amusing to him. Anger did funny things to John's tiny body. 'I'm fairly sure you've never been honest with him for a single day of his life.' 

'It was for his own good,' Mycroft defended, moving in the bed and wincing at the ache it brought to his strained shoulder. 'Eurus remaining in Sherlock's thoughts for one moment longer than she had to would have destroyed him.' 

'She's his bloody sister,' John raised his voice as he stood, that anger beginning to become too hard to rein back enough to stay seated. 'You had no right to erase her from his mind. It wasn't fair.' 

'And knowing that his own little sister wanted to see him dead would have been a better thing for him to live with?' Mycroft challenged. 

John laughed sarcastically, 'She's mentally ill, Mycroft; you don't imagine he would have seen through that and not taken her words to heart if you'd taken the time to explain it to him, if you'd let him see her, let him know she existed?' He stood at the foot of Mycroft's bed and braced himself on the plastic framing of the footplate. 'You owe him a lifetime of explanations, and that's no exaggeration. Sherlock and your parents must be so proud to be related to a man who would rather see his sister dead than face up to the fact that she's unwell, that she'll never really be free but could have known them anyway. You're evil; and yet he thinks you're this martyr, he thinks you're so goddamned smart and that you know it all, that you have the answers when really...,' John stopped short of bawling at the man in a total loss of control. 'You don't deserve the family you have, Mycroft Holmes.' He settled on, and the look of distaste on Mycroft's face was enough to satisfy John into silence. 

'I know,' Mycroft said, avoiding meeting John's eyes as much as he could. 

John released his grip on the bed and stiffened his body. 'You don't, though,' he said, smoothly. 'Because for all your intelligence, you're stupid.' He wet his lips and pushed his hair back smoothly. 'I'm going to find him, and we probably won't be back in here tonight so, eh, feel better.' He turned away, and walked toward the door. 

'John,' Mycroft called after him, his voice soft and careful and John's mind raced back to standing in the aisle of the plane that day, and wondered if the same words were coming. When they did, John's chest tightened. 'Look after him.' John didn't look back. He raised his hand and pushed against the door, slipping from the room without another word or sound, leaving Mycroft in the dim light of the room. What did Mycroft think he was still doing here if he didn't intend on looking after the best friend he'd ever had?


End file.
